You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August 2010.
While I was madly planning for my first unit, I started to think about how I could make it more fresh and more inquiry-based. During my practicum experiences, I watched as material was taught in a very specific order: concept first, examples after. It got me thinking about what that looks like, and all I could think was, “how is that not boring, it’s all words!” The concepts for this unit are things like biodiversity, variation, niches, species, symbiosis, and natural selection, concepts which when left alone just end up as words on a page. Who actually remembers the three kinds of symbiosis? (The answers after the break.)
If I had to describe my first day as a first-year teacher at my first school in one word, it would be: nauseating. I was so sick with worry and nerves this morning that I almost threw up. And this isn’t even at a school I’ve never been to before, it was my first-year practicum school. So it’s not like I was walking into a school I didn’t know, I actually knew quite a bit about this school before I even arrived. But that didn’t change the fact that I was nervous as hell.
“We all strived to do it exactly as we were being taught…”
- Carmen Maidstone
This will probably end up being a rant. But first, a few questions.
- How legible is your handwriting?
- Do you write in cursive or by printing?
- How often do you write versus type/text?
“Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians. The evidence shows conclusively that Proposition 8 enacts, without reason, a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples.”
- Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker
The past week has been pretty amazing. The August long weekend played host to Vancouver’s Pride celebrations and my engagement to my partner; and yesterday saw the repealing of Proposition 8 by Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker. Each event alone is significant because they all celebrate our basic rights to freedom, equality, and love, but together they represent the power of diversity at its best.
